23 January 2012

In Cancun, Mexico at a swanky new hotel.  Wow, gorgeous.

It was kind of painful getting here.  We were delayed 2 hours last night going from Detroit to Pittsburgh waiting for a plane which was coming (at any moment!) from the hangar.  It eventually showed up.  Because we were late into Pittsburgh, our flight out the next day was delayed.  When we got to the plane late this morning, the plane was broken so we wasted another hour or so fixing the it, or rather deferring what was broken (aft drain mast) so we could finally fly to Detroit.  Needless to say we were late to DTW.

We did push back for Cancun on time, but the fuel totalizer on the aircraft was acting up and we had to taxi back to the gate.  Another hour delay, or rather 1.5 hour delay.  We ended up almost an hour and a half late into Cancun.  What a day.

I did get to go for a run on the beach when I got here and the temperature is about 82 degrees and sunny, so it was NICE once I did arrive.  Painful to get here though.  No one enjoys delays, least of all me.

I'm wondering why God created me so, um, non-optimistic (hahahaha - okay, pessimistic).  Is it a gift?  A cross to bear?  Part of my brokenness?  I think I would argue that it is all three.  Obviously, being a human being my character is subject to the fall, so in some sense pessimism is a reflection of that brokenness, something that I will just have to deal with much like others deal with an overly strong desire for alcohol or food or pride or lust, etc.  So if it is part of my brokenness, then it is also a cross to be born, a difficulty to be managed.

I think I would also argue that, in God's marvelous way of taking broken things and making them useful, it is a gift to be used in God's service.  I tend not to look at things the way other people look at them.  So pessimism (realism I say) makes me aware of things that people who are not so inclined do not, or cannot see.  Many times I am aware of upcoming problems before other people are because I've already seen and predicted the problem.  Sometimes this is a good thing, but it is also a weakness as well.  I tend to see barriers rather than possibilities.  God uses both kinds of people, those who see barriers and those who see possibilities.

The challenge for those of us who see barriers is to not let that get in the way of the church moving forward in faith, and believe me, it is a challenge for us!

21 January 2012

A day of short call.  There is a good chance that I'll get called in too, because there is snow out on the east coast.  We shall see.

Cherie and I went swimming yesterday morning, after a short night of rest (finally got to sleep around midnight).  I swam 2000 meters and got a lot of prayer out while I swam, thanks to Cherie's "one prayer per lap" system.  Next, we went to Starbucks, bought coffee, and then carried it to GTPC where we ate breakfast and did our devotions.  After that, we head over to Durand to see Lance.  He is doing pretty well.  Getting along with just a walker now.  He will be released next Friday. 

The afternoon was reserved for a short nap, then we were off to MSU to have dinner with Kelly and Celina.  I tried to go to bed early because I went on call at 0400 today, but that didn't work either.  A good day off.

19 January 2010

Lying in bed at the Wyndham Garden in Chelsea, Massachusetts.  I woke up at 3.30 am and don't leave until 8.10 am!  Doh! Today, I will go from BOS to MSP and then to DTW, then I have 24 hours off.  I still have 5 more days of reserve after today, so I'm pretty sure I'll fly again before the end of the month.

Off to training on 5 February for the 757/767.  I've been doing LOTS of studying in preparation; hopefully that will help out when I start school.

I was reading Thom Rainer's blog yesterday on Seven Reasons that Leaders Fail.  Rainer is the president of Lifeway Christian Resources.  It's a pretty good read if you are in leadership or contemplating ever being in leadership.  I am on a leadership team at my church so I suppose that qualifies as being in leadership, even though there is not a single person responsible; it is a team that is responsible.

At any rate, I think the thing that struck me most is that one of the reasons leaders fail is that they are paralyzed by fear.  Here is how Rainer puts it: On the other extreme, some leaders have almost no confidence. They are unwilling to make decisions because they don’t want to be wrong. They are more likely to move decision making to multiple levels of committees and groups so they don’t have to be responsible for the decision.

I wouldn't say that this is my chief leadership weakness, although it is something that I should probably be aware of.  It is oftentimes easier to put off crucial and painful decisions or meetings because we don't want to go through them, or yes, we are afraid to be wrong.  I agree with Rainer, this is poor leadership.  A leader has to decide and then live with the consequences of that decision, not delegate it to a committee to escape responsibility (which he wouldn't ultimately escape anyway).

What IS my chief leadership weakness?  Probably either a. Not putting enough effort into it; or b. not being organized.  I am terrible at administration.

26 December 2011

Today I go SNA SLC ORD DTW.  I'm sitting in the crew lounge in SLC because I have a 3.5 hour sit until we leave for ORD, ugh.  Waste of time.

Ran into a buddy from the Marines who I haven't seen since I got out; Steve "Scarey" Carey.  He was a good, funny guy.  He's now an A320 captain flying out of SLC.

25 December 2011

We left Aruba at 13.40 yesterday afternoon.  It was a gorgeous day there; in the '80's with typical sea breezes.  Aruba is very close to Venezuala, perhaps 20 miles or so, and actually a little bit further south than the northernmost point in South America.  It is a small island that was originally used to raise horses to be used on the larger and more habitable island of Curacao.  Aruba has no natural water so literally all of its water comes from a giant desalination plant.  It is not a very picturesque place; I imagine most of its beauty is hidden beneath the surface of the ocean.  It's warm and sunny in winter though!

We flew north over the Domincan Republic and then up the Bahamas, touching land in the U. S. at Wilmington, NC.  The Dominican Republic has some very rugged mountains reaching up to 10,200 feet, which kind of surprised me.  I didn't realize they were that high.  The island was mostly clear when we flew over, so we had a great view of the varied terrain from ocean beaches to mountains in the Dominican Republic.  Further to the west and part of the same island is Haiti; it looks the same from the air, but of course is much different than the Dominican Republic politically and economically.

We landed to a nice day in New York City a little earlier than scheduled which is nice because it happens so little at La Guardia. 

Today we will leave shortly after 1400 for MSP and then fly on to SNA.  Too bad we won't be there long enough to see mom and dad.

20 December 2011

Matt home yesterday.  Yay!!  He will be here for 10 days or so, although I wont' see much of him because I'll be working for several of those days.  We are going to do a CCW class together on the 27th of December. 

Reading a couple of interesting books.  Van Gogh: The life and Depression: A Stubborn Darkness.  Both of them are fascinating and well worth reading. 

Hopefully off to hit the gun range with Matt today.

A Visit to SFMOMA

A Visit to SFMOMA

So I had a trip into San Francisco today and with a little time in the afternoon was able to run over to theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art. My timing was pretty good because the traveling exhibit is part of the collection of Leo and Gertrude Stein which meant a lot of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Naturally, this section of the museum was packed, but manageable and I spent almost two hours wandering through it. I like both Matisse and Picasso so it was pretty interesting. I think my favorite Matisse is "The Woman with a Hat." The image doesn't do it justice, but Matisse was more interested in vibrant colors than he was in reproducing reality, and "Woman with a Hat" is nothing if not vibrant.

I also got to see a very famous portraitof Gertrude Stein done by Pablo Picasso. When Mrs. Stein saw the finished product she supposedly remarked, "but it doesn't even look like me. To which Picasso supposedly responded: "Just wait. It will." That made me laugh. Poor Mrs. Stein, Matisse did a portrait of her and she doesn't look any better. I fear she was as unphotogenic as myself.

After finishing with the Stein collection, which was definitely the highlight of the visit, I wandered through the permanent collection. Some of it is great, some of it is just trash. It's hard to see how some of the stuff that they waste space on is going to stand the test of a century or more. Will we be looking at Jackson Pollock's nonsensical "art" in a hundred years, like I was looking at Matisse and Picasso? I can't imagine so, because Pollock's "art" has nothing to grab us. Indeed, part of the fun of going to the Modern Art museum is to the hear the curators try and explain something unexplainable like a Pollock piece. As my nephew wrote once, "I wish someone could explain a Pollock painting to me with words that meant something." Just so. The curators had a lot of words to say about Pollock, but altogether they meant nothing. The same could be said for some (but not all) of the whole modern art collection.

Take Clifford Styll. There was a whole room of his paintings that all looked something like this one. Is there meaning here? Can you explain that meaning with words that mean something? I didn't think so.

There is a whole room of Styll's stuff and people wandered through it very quickly because there was nothing to hold them, nothing to think about, no transcendent meaning, just modern "art." This is the stuff that to me is a waste of museum space (and don't even get me started on the pile of newspapers in one corner that was super cool "art," that is nothing but a sad joke).

Much of the floor space was allocated to stuff that will be on the junk heap of history in 100 years, like the display that was a video of an "artist" getting plastered by paint spray. Yeah, now THAT is quality art.

I do enjoy the art of Edward Hopper and the Museum had one of his pieces called "Bridal Path."

Some of modern art is interesting and worthy of study. A lot of it is junk which won't stand the test of time. All in all it was an interesting visit and a good day.